


Big Surprises

by telperion_15



Category: Primeval, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-13
Updated: 2010-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:44:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telperion_15/pseuds/telperion_15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a routine mission in the Pegasus galaxy, Team Sheppard come across something they weren't expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Surprises

Sheppard came to an abrupt halt as he emerged from the trees, and was then shoved forward as first McKay, then Teyla, then Ronon, all piled up behind him.

They stared.

McKay was the first to find his voice. “Are those what I think they are?” he asked the world at large.

“If you think they’re dinosaurs, then yes,” Sheppard replied, aiming for nonchalant but missing it by several country miles.

“What’s a dinosaur?” Ronon said, apparently not quite as taken aback by the sight in front of them as either Sheppard or McKay.

“They’re, uh, a type of animal that used to live on Earth,” Sheppard explained. “But they became extinct millions of years ago.”

“Are we to deduce that you are surprised to see them here, Colonel?” Teyla enquired.

“Are we surprised to see a species of animal that hasn’t existed for at least 150 million years, and which in fact evolved on a completely different planet in a _completely different galaxy?_ ” McKay responded. “Let me think about that for a moment…”

“I thought the dinosaur only died out 65 million years ago?” Sheppard interjected quickly, noticing that Ronon wasn’t looking particularly happy about McKay’s rudeness towards Teyla.

“They did,” McKay said. “But these are obviously diplodocus – they lived at the end of the Jurassic, 150 million years ago.” The look he gave Sheppard plainly said he pitied the colonel for being such an idiot.

Sheppard ignored it. “I didn’t know you were a dinosaur nut, McKay,” he said. “In fact, I’m sure I heard you compare palaeontologists to archaeologists the other day. And we all know what you think of archaeologists…”

“I was a kid once, you know,” McKay pointed out. “Don’t try to tell me you weren’t interested in dinosaurs when you were a child, Sheppard.”

“As a matter of fact, I preferred my toy cars and planes,” Sheppard began, but he stopped when Ronon interrupted.

“People are coming.”

Sheppard looked round quickly. “Where?”

“Over there, Colonel,” Teyla said, pointing past the herd of diplodocus.

Sheppard squinted. They were right. There _were_ people. Five of them. And they didn’t look much like Pegasus natives. In fact, they looked like…

“They look like they’re from Earth,” McKay said.

“Took the words right out my mouth, McKay,” Sheppard replied, eyes still on the group approaching them.

The people were close enough now for him to make out that there were four men and one woman. The leader was a sandy-haired guy in a battered green coat. Just behind him walked a slightly taller man with dark hair and some kind of rifle slung over his shoulder on a strap. Next came a third man and the woman, petite with bright blond hair. Sheppard could see that she was pulling a face as the young guy next to her talked a mile a minute and waved his hands around a lot. And at the back of the group walked a soldier kitted out in black combat gear and carrying a serious looking gun. Sheppard could tell at a glance that the man was _very_ good at his job.

This odd assortment of people came to a halt in front of Sheppard’s party, and for a moment everyone just looked at each other, tension thick in the air.

Then the sandy-haired guy spoke. “Who are you?” he asked bluntly, his accent obviously Scottish. Sheppard’s eyebrows rose. Earth was looking more and more likely as a point of origin for this lot. Where else would this man have picked up an accent like that?

“I’m Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard,” he replied calmly. “And this is Dr. Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, and Ronon Dex. And now, if you don’t mind my asking, who are _you?_ ”

The other man bristled for a moment, and Sheppard wondered if they were about to have a problem. Then the second man in the group, the one with dark hair and the rifle, placed a hand on the guy’s shoulder.

“Calm down, Cutter,” he said. Then he smiled at Sheppard and the others. “This is Professor Nick Cutter,” he continued. “I’m Stephen Hart, and this is Connor Temple and Abby Maitland. And the strong, silent one at the back is Captain Tom Ryan.”

Captain Ryan didn’t look too happy at Stephen Hart’s voluntary sharing of information, but he didn’t say anything. Sheppard resolved to keep an eye on the soldier, just in case.

“How did you get here?” Cutter demanded suddenly, back to his blunt questioning.

“How did _you_ get here?” Sheppard countered. Cutter just glowered at him, and didn’t answer.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” McKay exclaimed suddenly. “We’ll be here all day.” He pointed sharply at the diplodocus herd, which seemed to be going about its business completely unconcerned by the human confrontation happening nearby. “I suppose those _are_ dinosaurs?” he asked acidly. “We’re not all hallucinating or something are we?”

“No, they are dinosaurs,” Cutter admitted grudgingly.

“Aren’t they amazing?” Connor Temple suddenly burst out. “Diplodocus! We haven’t seen any of those before.” Then he subsided abruptly as the girl next to him – Abby Maitland, Sheppard remembered – elbowed him in the ribs.

“Connor, _shut up!_ ” she hissed.

“What do you mean, ‘before’?” Sheppard asked suspiciously.

“Do you mean these aren’t the first dinosaurs you’ve seen?” McKay said.

There was a moment of silence, and then Cutter sighed. “Yes, these aren’t the first dinosaurs we’ve seen,” he said.

“This isn’t even our first time in the Jurassic,” Hart put in. “We’ve been here a couple of times already…”

“Wait a minute,” Sheppard interrupted. “What’s this about the Jurassic?”

“This is the Jurassic era,” Cutter said slowly, reminding Sheppard of McKay when he was trying to explain something to someone he considered to be particularly stupid.

“Never heard anyone call this place that,” Ronon said gruffly.

“No, it is not a name we have ever heard in connection with this galaxy,” Teyla confirmed. “Or even this planet.”

“What? Planet? _Galaxy?_ ” Cutter sounded completely at a loss. “What are you talking about?”

“This isn’t the Jurassic, _Professor_ ,” McKay sneered, his tone obviously questioning Cutter’s right to the title. “This is the Pegasus galaxy. You’re about three million light years from anywhere that might ever have been prehistoric Earth.”

“And more specifically, this is planet M2Z-491,” Sheppard added. “Known to these fine people,” he gestured at Teyla and Ronon, “as Ephrasia.”

All five members of Cutter’s group looked completely floored by this information, including Captain Ryan, who Sheppard suspected didn’t ordinarily give much away.

“You must be joking,” Cutter said faintly at last. “It’s not possible.”

“Oh my god, this is fantastic!” Connor Temple exclaimed. “The anomalies go to other planets as well as other eras. This is just…brilliant!”

Abby Maitland glared at him, but again it was too late.

“What’s an anomaly?” Sheppard asked, beginning to wonder if actually McKay might not be right, and they were in fact hallucinating this whole episode. Either that, or he was about to wake up in his bed in Atlantis and discover it was all a dream.

Once again Cutter looked like he was considering not answering, but then he shrugged. “An anomaly is a rip in the fabric of space and time,” he said. “We don’t completely understand them, but they allow us to travel between different eras in Earth’s history. And now apparently between different planets and galaxies as well,” he added belatedly.

“Wait, wait, wait,” said McKay quickly. “Do these ‘anomalies’ give off any kind of energy?”

“Well, they emit a very strong magnetic field,” Cutter replied. “But we suspect there must be more to it than just that – there has to be some other kind of energy required to create and sustain them, only we haven’t been able to detect it.”

McKay turned to Sheppard. “This anomaly must be the source of the energy readings we came here to check out,” he said excitedly. “I _knew_ they couldn’t be Ancient.”

“Where is this anomaly?” Sheppard asked.

“Back the way we came, on the other side of the diplodocus herd,” Hart said.

“I think you’d better show us.”

“Yeah, okay.” Cutter seemed like he’d given up trying to be obstructive, thankfully. “Come on.”

Sheppard fell into step between Cutter and Hart. Behind them Temple was walking next to McKay, bombarding him with questions. Teyla was next to Abby Maitland, and bringing up the rear were Ronon and Captain Ryan, who were eyeballing each other suspiciously, to Sheppard’s slight amusement.

“It seems we’re going to have to revise all our theories about what the anomalies are and what they do,” Cutter said, as they made their way around the edge of the diplodocus herd, keeping well out of range of the creatures’ swinging tales. Then he smiled a little, ruefully. “This job just gets weirder and weirder.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Sheppard told him. “ _Believe_ me.”

Temple suddenly piped up with a question. “So, you guys obviously didn’t get here though an anomaly,” he said. “So where did _you_ come from?”

Sheppard looked at the younger man over his shoulder, and Temple’s face developed a worried expression. “I, er, we’re all friends now, aren’t we?” he said. “You can tell us, we won’t tell anyone else.”

There was another tense moment, and then Sheppard grinned. “Tell them about the Stargate, McKay,” he said.


End file.
